Now let me refresh some memories here now. Who is Shilpa Shetty? Errr, maybe I'm a lil lost here but when was the last time Ms. Shetty did something that caught public attention? I think it was 1938. Or whatever!! Bottom line, if at all anything, the media and Ms. Shetty and all her remaining twenty three fans should be thankful to Jade Goody for bringing her back to limelight.

Now get your bricks and barbed cynicism ready to hurl at me but to be very honest, I think that NOTHING strange happened in Big Brother. Why are we so freakin sensitive abt anything and everything said abt Indians? Big freaking deal that some half baked celebrity called our la-deeh-luh heroine "Shilpa Poppadum". I just find the whole thing to be a lack of imagination of Indian slurs. Seriously, Poppadum? That's the best you could do? Dudette you need serious coaching in the art of insult hurling. But then I digress.

So where was I? Right, on the whole Ms. Shetty "the victim of racism" debate. Let's analyze this a lil bit more. I believe the last group of people talking abt racial slurs should be Indians. As a group of people, we are probably one of the most racist in our outlooks. We take racism to all new levels. The granularity at which we perform racism is appalling. "Wow, you have South Indian friends?" "Woah, you are dating a Bong guy?" "I want my son to only marry an Iyer", "I will disown you if you do not marry someone from our sub caste" ... Sounds familiar. That's US. Yess. We carry on racism at state, city and language boundaries. We are the exact same nation where engineers stand days outside a college protesting against reservation, only to come back home and have their mom's put up matrimonial ads that read "Wanted girl from So and So state, Blah blah community and Yada Yada locality." That's how micro-granular our racism is. Anybody who has stepped out of their own states in India for college will be familiar with the terms - Illad, Gult, Bongs, Gujjus, Ghati, Marus etc. etc. etc. And that doesn't bother any of us - right? What bothers us is when somebody who is in a Reality Show that screams "we Want Controversies" calls one of our own Poppadum. Duh! Duh! Triple duh!

Gazillion ones amongst us have tried to mimic the British accent and made attempted humorous statements on how it sounds. And all that is fine - right. But when two Brits make fun of an Indian's accent we turn into a rebellious jingoistic lot - huh? Grow up people. Ask yourself honestly - have you never made fun of the way Bongs say "O to everything" (Obhishek and not Abhishek, Onita, Ojoy etc.), have you never made fun of how Tamilians say "Haich" for the letter H? Haven't you ever made fun Panjabis by cracking three borrowed jokes abt Santa and Banta? So why all these protests against Jade Goody? She's just like you, only with a different accent and a lesser repository of jokes. Seriously, I hate to see dalits being paraded naked in some Indian village and the news making one corner of the second page of the newspaper with no follow up actions, while Shilpa Shetty getting a second shot at stardom courtesy a show that showcases second tier celebrities and then sympathizing with her as a miserable wretch because someone called her a Poppadum.

Totally agree with you on the topic!! Too much is being made of the whole Shilpa Shetty-Big Brother case when there are far more serious issues to be addressed. And we Indians are probably the most racist of all.It's common to see exchange students from Africa being made fun of, whereas any gora is treated like royalty.

Amazing write-up, sire! Indeed, the way we have immuned ourselves to the different types of abuses we manage to conjure in the name of the community is something we should introspect before shouting ourselves hoarse at someone else calling us anything.

we indians are always like tat na...adressing issues which are of no importance when there r burning issues that need to be addressed immediately...so wats so new in this? a single actor/politician having some very minor issues will be flashed in the media for months while thousands of ppl dying out of poverty and malnutrition wont even get a small space anywhere in the media...its all for the hype, for the media persons to mk money nothing else...n we indians reading all this and getting worked up for nothing when we have much bigger and worthwhile issues in our own lives to be taken care of...hv no words to express this pathetic situation!

For a while I thought I was the only demented person around (well being the only with such thoughts does qualify one to be called demented). Now I see that I have company. I have watched tons of debates on TV around this issue - and the only thing I would like to add is, lets not waste any more of our time on such non-issues.

I think age is catching upto you dude, since when you have started writing serious stuff. And yes, please get headlines rolling again .. miss that a lot.

1) Totally agree that the hype and pretense was all bullshit...but theres more to it than Goody calling Shilpa poppadum...she was accused of 'touching' the others' food with her hands and for making undercooked chicken as well...But anyway the producers of the show have acheived their goal pretty well ...considering the heated discussion and the fact that ppl want to throw up than just ignoring these things...:)...2)Eagerly waiting for the rakhi sawant post...i wont mince words and say that rakhi was just plain outspoken and honest about what she saw and felt...while the others were hypocrites , 'politically correct' and pretenders. Also rakhi was less educated and polished which is why she bore the brunt of all the ignoring and snide behaviour. But somehow i feel the indian version of this show has done more justice than big brother....rahul was the only one who was non controversial and respectful towards everyone else....

Very well put Sagnik. This whole thing is so lame if you look at the double standards we Indians practise ourselves. And anyway, who is Shilpa to speak on behalf of all Indians or be conscience keeper. This whole charade resembles a brothel. The producers pimping Shilpa's story to sell a down and out show. Shilpa pimping her Indian origins to make money and us pimping national pride to get an apology from a non-entity.

Looks like marriage is turning you into a more serious (intense?) person ;-)But seriously, i totally agree! in fact, i wrote some of the same stuff about 2 weeks ago http://unjustly.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/it-aint-racism/Do also read Neha Vishwanathan's post on the subject!

Rightly put. We (rather the media) seem to be keen on the TRP than the content. For almost a week there were repeated clippings of Shilpa and nothing else to be watched on the (so called) news channels.

any publicity is good publicity. I dont care if shilpa shetty makes here millions of the dufus viewers who watch big bro or big boss. If she didnt someone else would. For what I care is that indians are hypocritical as rightly pointed by you.

Very good point. Actually, this is all a total media hype. They just want a easy news. Hence the focus on Shilpa and Ash-Abhishek. Just put a camera in front of their house and put a dumb reporter in front of the camera mouthing some insane things like how people are standing for hours to catch a glimpse of the celebrity. If you put a camera anywhere in World there will be people piling around more so over in India. Our media has become very celebrity oriented. That is the problem. phewwww........

But racism is racism. That the target is a minor celeb just highlighted it more. I think it's an issue. Bong/Mal jokes do not presuppose superiority and do not affect perceptions at work, the treatment of kids at school etc. In UK, racism affects schools. That's bad enough for it to be an issue even though it's sometimes hard to think of oneself as a victim or a potential victim. Racism is subtle and dangerous; it isn't a non-issue.

I found the whole episode ridiculous, if only because I heard it on NPR one morning, and then my friends in class ask me who "She'll-Pah Shetty" is... I mean, the whole show was on YouTube, the guys running the show got flak... all for political correctness.

I agree 100% on the Indian racism issue... I really don't see any justification for Indians having any moral high ground when protesting racism... it all amounts to hypocrisy.

I guess Anon has a point about perspective, but it's also a skewed perspective because in India, you do have immediate benefits from the racism... some group is always better than another. But that doesn't justify anything. It makes Indians look like bigger hypocrites, because they fight the racism only when they are the biggest victims.

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